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The Cresset, a journal of commentary on literature, the arts, and public affairs, explores ideas and trends in contemporary culture from a perspective grounded in the Lutheran tradition of scholarship, freedom, and faith while informed by the wisdom of the broader Christian community.

A Publication of:

This article will reflect on some of the
main trends in the current dialogue between Muslims and Christians. The field
by itself is obscure and ever evolving. There are as many Muslim as there are
Christian points of view concerning the need and expediency of pouring one’s
energy into this exercise, especially in a day when extremist voices
resound on both sides. For Lutherans,
this undertaking involves a
theological challenge as we struggle to read the signs of God in a pluralist
world while staying faithful to our own beliefs. In my view, there
is as much reason for despair as there is for hope.

A Polarized World

“It
is all about money,” said a lower-class worker from Britain on National Public Radio this January when asked about the current situation with
his Muslim co-citizens. When seen from his point of view, religion
and money are indeed closely connected. From his perspective and that of the
rest of Europe, the world seems to have landed in an
ongoing dialectic. One end of the globe pours money into projects of
integration and acceptance, while on the other side calls grow
louder—especially from extremist Muslims—for separation from all others in the world.

Countries such as Britain, Germany, and
the Netherlands have allotted inordinate proportions of their resources to help
new citizens from Muslim countries catch up with the prevailing levels of
education and prosperity. The original idea was that if the new immigrants
could learn the language, understand their new environment, and
live in comfort, the next natural step would be smooth
integration into their new homelands.

We seldom hear of the success stories
resulting from these integration approaches. We mostly see the negative side of
bombings and other attacks perpetrated by extremists, some
of whom grew up in the cities they hoped to destroy: 3/11 in Madrid, the
11/2 murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, the
summer bombings in London, and scores of other attacks that were
prevented. For Europeans, the closer the violence came to home, the
more homegrown it seemed to be. Muslim children born and raised in European
countries relished in thoughts of passing into paradise by blowing up their
fellow citizens. So it is understandable that a lower-class Briton who first
saw social security programs cut,
then witnessed academic
standards in her children’s school decline, and
finally did not get a job because the new immigrants had priority, is
now fostering less than lofty opinions about the Muslim citizens.

Beyond Europe, intense
waves of polarization are pitting groups of people against each other. In my
first contribution on Muslim-Christian dialogue to The Cresset (Michaelmas
2000), I reported on remarkable initiatives in Indonesia, especially
those inspired by the philosophies of Abdurrahman Wahid, one
of the most influential Muslim leaders Indonesia ever had. Now, after
holding the presidency of his country for less than two years (October 1999 –
July 2001), Wahid has more or less retired to the
background. His time in office was marred by inter religious violence. Although
his voice is seldom heard, he continues to inspire young liberal
Indonesian Muslims with his writings. Unfortunately, those
holding the daily headlines are Muslims of Arab-Wahhabi-inspired radical
opinions who see moderate Islam,
Christianity, and
Christian attempts to entertain dialogue between the religions as the core
enemies of Islam.

Wherever we look, from
Nigeria to Indonesia, from former Soviet countries to Europe, polarization between Muslims and Christians, between
moderate and radical Muslims,
and between moderate and
radical Christians has taken center stage. This reality forces those involved
in projects of inter religious dialogue to rethink their approaches and
methodologies. The question I have heard most over these past two years is: “Why
should we spend our energies on inter religious dialogues, and
if we should, how should we go about it?” Over
the past year, I have been invited several times to
discuss this issue in my own country,
the Netherlands, where
people still are reeling from the murder of Van Gogh at the hands of a
Dutch-born young Muslim who,
because he was living on the
dole, had enough time to develop his radical
ideas via the Internet.

A slew of reconciliation efforts followed
the Van Gogh murder, including neighborhood dinners in Amsterdam, meetings in churches and mosques, and
public debates on topics such as “Is Islam compatible with secularism?” However, all
these attempts to pacify the angry Dutch are overshadowed by the local press, which
insists on carrying an anti-Muslim discourse that adds to tensions in society
and makes those involved in inter religious dialogue feel even more obsolete.

On the Muslim side, the
Wahhabi drive to preach a puritanical version of Islam, which
began in Saudi Arabia in the 1970s,
is maturing and profiting
from disarray and political instability in Muslim countries such as Indonesia and Nigeria. It rides also on the waves of fear of Western influences, especially
secularism and atheism, and is influencing the discourse of imams
preaching in European mosques and the minds of adolescents and young adults. We
are in the midst of what René Girard dubbed the “global
mimetic rivalry.”

After
painting this rather bleak picture,
are those dialogue efforts
still of use and, if so, how
should we proceed? And what went wrong in the “dialogue
business?”

Necessity of Dialogue

When returning to the basics, let
us remind ourselves why we Lutherans want to be involved in inter religious
dialogue with those of other faiths. In a World Council of Churches publication, the
theologian S. Wesley Ariarajah underlines the importance of dialogue by
comparing it to a public health program. While it cannot always resolve
immediate conflicts, he argues that the core goal of dialogue
should be to build a “community of conversation,” a
“community of heart and mind” that
reaches across racial, ethnic, and
religious barriers and helps people to understand and accept “otherness” (Ariarajah,
12–13).

An
international group of Lutherans from the Lutheran World Federation met July
27–31, 1995 in St. Paul, Minnesota, to
define what dialogue means. Agreeing on the observation that Christian
intellectuals had grown weary of the traditional process of Muslim-Christian
dialogue, they proposed a new approach from the
Christian theo-logical point of view (Lutheran World Federation, 161–180).
The weariness was ascribed mostly to the fact that the balance of inter
religious initiatives tips to the Christians, who
have undertaken far more efforts to discuss faith with their Muslim neighbors
than the other way around. Muslims consider their religion as the last one
revealed and thus overriding the others. A sentiment that I first heard over a
decade ago I now hear all over the world: we need to move to more engaged and
serious level of communication between Muslims and Christians. To reach this
new level, we need to search for new methods and
approaches. The time for men to sit in rooms discussing issues of faith is
over. There is more at stake than ever. Lack of communication between
Christians and Muslims can lead to violence, such as
the riots between members of the two faiths in Alexandria, Egypt,
this past October.

Turning the Tide

So what is being done and what can be
done? The LWF group suggested identifying concrete
topics and practical areas of concern within local communities (LWF,
174). The group proposed
discussions on the position of women,
the role of the family, freedom
of religion, secularization, and
the plight of migrant workers (LWF, 180).
Looking at projects around the globe,
we observe that since the
early 1990s Christian communities in Muslim countries have launched many
practical initiatives to counter growing extremism in their societies. Many of
these initiatives—especially those focusing on education—have received eager
responses from moderate Muslims who fear losing their children to extremist groups.

In summary, deadlocks
and increased hatred can be broken when dedicated individuals teach their
children about the other and when youth are involved in all steps in the
process of reconciliation. When we are willing to learn from the insights of
peace studies, and from successful reconciliation
efforts such as those in South Africa,
we can create new forms of
communication in communities. We also need to stay open to non-conventional
approaches while accepting the fact that we live in an imperfect world in which
Muslims and Christians will be in perpetual competition and will never fully
agree. Finally, these efforts need to evolve on several
societal levels, ranging from political and religious
leaders to youth, although religious leaders in particular
have a responsibility to stem the tide of radicalization.

In Egypt, the
local Christians, or Copts, have
focused on education and youth to improve relationships with Muslims. They
opened schools that stress ethics and English language studies instead of
religion. By avoiding Arabic—the language of the Qur’an—and
by stressing what unites humans,
the schools form a new
generation of citizens whose religious allegiance is first to Egypt and only
second to their religion.

What was instilled during childhood is
followed up by the Bishopric for Youth Affairs where, under
the guidance of Bishop Mousa,
study and discussion groups
for adults are multiplying. Adolescents and young adults invite Muslims of the
same age to discuss challenges facing them in daily life such as the lack of
jobs and housing.

The goals of these efforts are
surprisingly realistic. Copts understand that there are extremists who intend
to kill anyone not belonging to “their group,” but
they also know that there are extremists who refrain from killing. Young Copts
focus their efforts on these non-violent extremists. They try to find these individuals
and talk with them to stop the process of de-humanizing the other that is
necessary for the formation of a suicide bomber.

In Indonesia, moderate
Muslims have reacted with a large range of initiatives to counter the extremist
agendas. A leader of a large organization for Muslim women, Lily
Munir, who is also a cousin of Abdurrahman Wahid, has
developed a curriculum about inter religious tolerance and pluralism especially
for the madrasahs (pesantren),
or Islamic schools where
future Muslim leaders are trained. This curriculum was followed up with another
on basic human rights, focusing on the rights of women, children,
and non-Muslims.

Inspired by these kinds of individual
projects, several Islamic state universities—where
the alumni of pesantren continue their studies—have started to teach
courses about freedom of religion,
human rights, and
inter religious tolerance. Realizing that high schools have become recruiting
centers for extremist Muslims who entice students when schools let out, the
Islamic universities now offer these curricula in post-graduate courses to high
school teachers.

These activities are in-line with the
advice of Abdelfattah Amor, the United Nations special observer on
freedom of religion or belief: “Rather than focusing on differences, the
education should demonstrate a basis for solidarity and understanding across
all borders of faith and culture. For instance with human rights education we
can build a solid basis for freedom of religion or belief. With religious
education in school there is always a danger of focusing too much on the
particular identities of the pupils and hence on what separates instead of what
unites us as human beings. We must avoid the ‘ghetto’ approach” (Amor).

The bottom line in Muslim societies is
that many of their citizens,
whatever their religion
might be, are loathe to see their communities
destroyed by ideas carried and acted upon by extremists. In order to protect
the ideals of a healthy civil society,
they try to create new
spaces for encounter and discussion. These spaces are no longer filled only by
male leaders, but now also by women, children, and
youth. From the field of peace studies we learn the importance of this approach
for true reconciliation.

Peace
studies specialist John Paul Lederach,
for example, sees
the social dynamics of relationship building and the development of supportive
infrastructures for peace as a pre-requisite to preventing violence (Lederach, 20–21).
Lederach distinguishes between “peace-making” and
“peace-building.” Peace-making
is the role of governmental and other official agencies, while
peace-building includes grassroots activities including the work of religious
leaders and institutions and the actions of local religious communities. He
argues that incidents of violence often are met with diplomatic, state-level
solutions. This approach ignores the community processes that result in
violence. Those involved in conflicts might be tied less to citizenship in the
state and more to their ethnic,
racial, or
religious affiliations (16). People involved in conflicts are driven by human
perceptions and emotions such as deep-rooted prejudices, animosities, and
fears that state-level approaches tend to ignore. Informed by this reality, Lederach
proposes that we move away “from a concern with the resolution of
issues … toward a frame of reference that focuses on the restoration and
rebuilding of relationships”
(24). In this new framework, relationships
are the foundation that carries reconciliation work. By reaching for
reconciliation via relationships,
reconciliation no longer
constitutes a lofty, unrealistic goal, but
becomes a process of encounter and a social space (29).

Conclusion

For those of us teaching at the
undergraduate level, these findings have important
implications. The majority of programs addressing inter religious issues are
currently taught at the graduate level,
such as at Luther Seminary
in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and at
the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. From the experiences and studies
quoted here, we learn that it is crucial to address
these issues earlier in a student’s education. The world religion programs
that colleges—including Valparaiso University— offer are important for raising
awareness about other faiths. Although courses on Hinduism, Islam, Confucianism, etc., can
help students completely change their frame of reference about the other, in
our consumption-oriented society,
we are continually at risk
that students consider these studies yet another option for consumption—for “tasting” a
few bites from what others believe. Those of us teaching world religion courses
must learn from the experiences of those struggling for inter religious
dialogue around the world. Our students must come to understand that learning
about the “other” is not
just an academic exercise, but an opportunity to make a difference
in the world. At times, it can even mean the difference between
peaceful co-existence and violent strife.

Nelly van Doorn-Harder is Surjit S. Patheja,M.D.,Associate
Professor of World Religions and Ethics at Valparaiso University. Parts of this
essay are taken from a presentation delivered at the Nineteenth World Congress
of the International Association for the History of Religions,
Tokyo, March, 2005.

Bibliography

Abdelfattah, Amor.
“How to Follow up on Madrid: Aims and
Challenges.” Teaching for Tolerance and Freedom of
Religion or Belief. Edited
by Lena Larsen and Ingvill T. Plesner. Oslo: Oslo Coalition on Freedom of
Religion or Belief, 1992.

Ariarajah, Wesley.
Not without My Neighbor: Issues in Interfaith Relations. Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1999.

Lederach,
John Paul. Building Peace: Sustainable Reconciliation in Divided Societies.
Washington D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2002.

Lutheran World Federation. “Summary Report from the Working Group on Islam.” Theological Perspectives
on Other Faiths: Toward a Christian Theology of Religions. Documentation from a
consultation held in Bangkok, 10–13 July, 1996. Edited by Hance A. O. Mwakabana. Geneva: LWF
Documentation, 1997.